{"id":6662,"date":"2019-04-09T14:04:44","date_gmt":"2019-04-09T11:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.media\/?p=6662"},"modified":"2019-04-09T14:12:05","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T11:12:05","slug":"facebook-allegedly-aiming-to-raise-1-billion-for-its-crypto-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/facebook-allegedly-aiming-to-raise-1-billion-for-its-crypto-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Allegedly Aiming to Raise $1 Billion for Its Crypto Project"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Facebook is seeking support from venture capital firms to invest in its crypto-related project, targeting to raise as much as $1 billion. The news was revealed by NY Times reporter Nathaniel Popper in a series of twits on Monday, April 8.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The social media is allegedly designing its crypto as the native currency for all its major platforms \u2013 Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Reportedly, Facebook is also eyeing to make a splash on the lucrative remittance market in India with its cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Update on Facebook&#8217;s cryptocurrency: Sources tell me that Facebook is now looking to get VC firms to invest in the Facebook cryptocurrency project we reported on earlier this year. I hear they are targeting big sums &#8212; as much as $1b.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Nathaniel Popper (@nathanielpopper) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nathanielpopper\/status\/1115331482384388098?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 8, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Pointing out the advantages of outside funding, Nathaniel Popper noted:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cGiven that one of the big allures of blockchain projects is the decentralization, getting outside investors could help Facebook present the project as more decentralized and less controlled by Facebook.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Moreover, according to Popper\u2019s sources, Facebook is planning to peg its digital tokens against \u201ca basket of\u201d fiat currencies, to create a so-called stablecoin, thus avoiding the crypto market fluctuations and making the coin more usable.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cOne person I spoke with said that Facebook is talking about using the money as collateral for its cryptocurrency. Facebook has been designing the coin to keep a stable value, pegged to a basket of foreign currencies held in bank accounts,\u201d Popper stated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">It&#8217;s interesting to think of one of the richest companies on earth raising money. When was the last time they did outside fundraising?<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Nathaniel Popper (@nathanielpopper) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nathanielpopper\/status\/1115331484527747072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 8, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Since 2018 Facebook has been covertly working on a cryptocurrency project and building a blockchain division within the company. The company has been tight-lipped about the purpose and progress of the coin, but Facebook has so far hired at least 30 people to the division with <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/david-marcus-steps-down-from-coinbase-board-to-avoid-conflict-of-interest\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">David Marcus<\/a>\u2014former head of Messenger, and the previous president of PayPal\u2014leading the division as \u201cDirector of Engineering, Blockchain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Though Facebook did not announce anything officially about its cryptocurrency project, media reports revealed earlier this year that the company is eyeing to develop its own digital currency called \u201cFacebook Coin\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2019\/03\/11\/facebooks-cryptocurrency-could-be-a-19b-revenue-opportunity-barclays-says.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Barclays analyst<\/a>, Facebook\u2019s cryptocurrency might generate as much as $19 billion a year in revenue.<\/p>\n<p>The last time Facebook raised funding was through a venture round in March 2012 for an undisclosed amount. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crunchbase.com\/organization\/facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CrunchBase<\/a>, the last public amount that Facebook raised was in January 2011 for $1.5 billion with the backing of firms including Goldman Sachs Investment Partners and DST Global.<\/p>\n<p>The company generated $56 billion in revenue in 2018 alone, with a net income of $22 billion. These figures represent more cash than the market capitalization of every single cryptocurrency except Bitcoin.<\/p>\n<p>For reference, the Menlo Park-headquartered company market capitalization is more than double the market capitalization of all cryptocurrency projects combined, sitting at $500 billion. Worldwide, Facebook reaches a massive 2.3 billion monthly active users.<\/p>\n<p>Follow ForkLog on <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\" https:\/\/twitter.com\/forklog_en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Twitter<\/a><\/span> and <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/forklogen\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> Facebook<\/a><\/span>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facebook is seeking support from venture capital firms to invest in its crypto-related project, targeting to raise as much as $1 billion. The news was revealed by NY Times reporter Nathaniel Popper in a series of twits on Monday, April 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"human_written","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[611,465,807],"class_list":["post-6662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-facebook","tag-social-media","tag-stablecoins"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"125","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6662"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6666,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662\/revisions\/6666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}